Some executives complained that the rush of companies and workers is pushing up living costs at least in big Texas cities. And finding skilled employees can be difficult. But executives and employees interviewed for this story generally said they haven’t looked back.
California added 90,100 payroll jobs in November as the state’s unemployment rate dipped slightly, to 7.2 percent.
The economic boom is leaving behind workers in California who lost their jobs in manufacturing and construction during the Great Recession and won’t ever regain those vanished positions, and the Bay Area is at the forefront of the upheaval in those and other sectors, according to a reported released Wednesday.
The state’s jobless rate currently sits at 7.3% — the nation’s fifth highest, and well above the overall U.S. rate of 5.8%. But California’s job creation has outpaced the national average since 2012, a trend that will continue, according to the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast released Wednesday.
This trend has likely helped hold back U.S. economic growth. Cities with the strongest job markets, such as New York and San Francisco, would grow even faster if more people could afford to live there, noted Jed Kolko, chief economist at the online real estate firm Trulia. The additional population would help spur further job growth, which, in turn, would strengthen the local economy and foster more of the middle-class jobs that the nation lacks.
The proportion of working-age Californians who are employed or actively seeking employment — known as the labor force participation rate — is the smallest it has been since the 1970s. In October, the state’s rate, 62.3%, fell below the national rate of 62.8%. Both rates have fallen sharply since the recession.
Employers in the state are still adding jobs at a faster pace than the rest of the country. But annual job growth nationwide expanded to a nine-month average of 1.8% this year from 1.7% in 2013, while the California rate has fallen to 2.2% from 3% last year.
Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 321,000 in November, the strongest month of hiring since January 2012, the Labor Department said Friday. Hiring was broad across industries, led by gains in the professional and business-services sector.
“We have a problem,” said former California Gov. Gray Davis, a featured speaker at the summit. “Fewer people are working and those who are working are making less money.”
Southern California could be on an economic “collision course” fueled by low-paying jobs that offer little opportunity for upward mobility, economists said Thursday. . . Speakers such as former California State Senate Pro Tem Kevin de León and former Gov. Gray Davis were on hand for the release of reports that found two-thirds of projected job openings in Los Angeles County over the next five years will come from occupations that require a high school diploma or less and little to no work experience.
Economic activity in the Twelfth District continued to improve moderately during the reporting period of early October through mid-November. Overall price and wage inflation remained modest. Retail sales and demand for business and consumer services increased moderately. Overall manufacturing activity picked up, while agricultural conditions were mixed. Real estate activity advanced, but growth in the residential sector varied across the District. Loan demand increased moderately.
In January 2014, there were nearly 14,000 jobs in the Sacramento Region’s “core” clean economy. These core jobs were in a range of businesses that provide the products and services that allow the entire economy to transition away from fossil fuels and improve efficiencies in the use of natural resources.
In January 2014, there were nearly 60,000 jobs in Bay Area’s “core” clean economy. These core jobs were in a range of businesses that provide the products and services that allow the entire economy to transition away from fossil fuels and improve efficiencies in the use of natural resources.
California’s unemployment rate for October was 7.3 percent, which remain unchanged from the previous month even as the state increased payroll jobs.
Like British Prime Minister David Cameron, Larry Summers sees warning lights flashing on the world’s economic dashboard. Summers, who served through 2010 as President Obama’s top economic adviser and was Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, said America should be acting now to shore up its economy, instead of celebrating its status as the healthiest patient in the global economic sick ward.